Power of Reading Library and Reading Affairs e-Newsletter Vol. 4 2020-2021 Library and Reading Affairs e-Newsletter Vol. 4 P.1 Welcome! This is the fourth newsletter published by the Library and Reading Affairs Team this year. In this volume, we have book and e-book recommendations, e-reading news, news sharing, a teacher’s book review, book reports, a book and film review, and an upcoming event to share with you. Enjoy reading! From the ground-breaking offices of Google, this book is a personal growth program that focuses on developing emotional intelligence through mindfulness, making its participants more productive at study or at work, while becoming more peaceful, happy and compassionate individuals. This book will show you how to apply the principles of “Search Inside Yourself” to you and everyday life. Whether you are a secondary school student or a teacher, a junior team member or a senior manager, these valuable lessons have the potential to dramatically improve your life. ISBN:9780007467976 Book Recommendation Search Inside Yourself: Increase Productivity, Creativity and Happiness
Power of ReadingWelcome! This is the fourth newsletter published by
the
Library and Reading Affairs Team this year. In this volume,
we
have book and e-book recommendations, e-reading news,
news sharing, a teacher’s book review, book reports, a book
and film review, and an upcoming event to share with you.
Enjoy reading!
From the ground-breaking offices of Google, this book is a personal
growth program that f o c u s e s o n d e v e l o p i n g e m o t i
o n a l intelligence through mindfulness, making its participants
more productive at study or at work, while becoming more peaceful,
happy and compassionate individuals.
This book will show you how to apply the principles of “Search
Inside Yourself” to you and everyday life. Whether you are a
secondary school student or a teacher, a junior team member or a
senior manager, these valuable lessons have the potential to
dramatically improve your life.
ISBN9780007467976
Recommendation Search Inside Yourself: Increase Productivity,
Creativity and Happiness
Library and Reading Affairs e-Newsletter Vol. 4 P.2
This book is packed with physical and verbal exercises to help you
organize and run a brainstorming session that engages all
personality types. Get those creative juices flowing with expert
guidance and dozens of enjoyable group activities to help you: •
Frame challenges to give team
members structure and context • Master the proven “Four Rules
of
Brainstorming” for amazing results • Create an environment of trust
that
encourages and inspires valuable contributions from people from all
backgrounds and at all levels
The Big Book of Brainstorming Games
ISBN: 9780071793162
Book Recommendation
Within their fields, thought leaders are sources of inspiration and
innovation. They have the gift of harnessing their expertise and
their networks to make their innovative thoughts real and
replicable, sparking sustainable change and even creating movements
around their ideas. In this book, being a renowned executive talent
agent, the author shows readers how to develop and use that gift as
she maps the path from a successful executive, professional, or
civic leader to a respected thought leader.
Ready to Be a Thought Leader?
ISBN: 9781118647615
Library and Reading Affairs e-Newsletter Vol. 4 P.3
In 2007, the author found an injured orange tabby in the hallway of
his shelter home in North London. Their friendship changed both of
their lives.
In Bob, he found a model for friendship, steadfastness, balance,
and joy that we can all apply to our own lives. This book is a
heartfelt and wholesome source about how to be kinder to ourselves
and kinder to the world around us.
The Little Book of Bob: Life Lessons from a Streetwise Cat
ISBN: 9781473688537
Book Recommendation
Jack’s in charge, said his mother as she disappeared up the road to
get help.
Three years later, Jack’s fifteen now and still in charge . . .
alone in the house. Meanwhile across town, a young woman called
Catherine While wakes to find a knife beside her bed, and a note
reading I could of killed you. The police are tracking a mysterious
burglar they call Goldilocks, for his habit of sleeping in the beds
of the houses he robs, but she doesn’t see the point of involving
the police. And Jack, very suddenly, may be on the verge of finding
out who killed his mother.
Snap
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Library and Reading Affairs e-Newsletter Vol. 4 P.6
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e
E-Reading News
https://www.readformore.com/
E-Reading News
a ferret, announced
Scientists have cloned the first U.S. endangered species, a black-
footed ferret duplicated from the genes of an animal that died over
30 years ago.
The slinky predator named Elizabeth Ann, born Dec. 10, 2020 and is
cute as a button. But watch out — unlike the domestic ferret foster
mom who carried her into the world, she’s wild at heart.
Elizabeth Ann was born and is being raised at a Fish and Wildlife
Service black-footed ferret breeding facility in Fort Collins,
Colorado. She’s a genetic copy of a ferret named Willa who died in
1988 and whose remains were frozen in the early days of DNA
technology.
“Biotechnology and genomic data can really make a difference on the
ground with conservation efforts,” said Ben Novak, lead scientist
with Revive & Restore, a biotechnology-focused conservation
nonprofit that coordinated the ferret and horse cloning.
Source: Bakhtar News Agency 19th February, 2021
Library and Reading Affairs e-Newsletter Vol. 4 P.9
News Sharing
snapped by wildlife photographer
A wildlife photographer believes he has snapped a “never before
seen” yellow penguin after seizing a “once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity” in the Atlantic. This extremely rare specimen can’t
help but stand out among its more commonly seen black and white
buddies. It is said to be the “first ever” yellow penguin to be
discovered, according to photographer Yves Adams.
Yves snatched his camera after spotting the unusual bird shining
bright among its 120,000 counterparts on a colony at Salisbury
Plain and described the experience as “incredible unique” –
revealing how the crew went “crazy” when they noticed the bird.
“I’d never seen or heard of a yellow penguin before.” the snapper
said.
“There were 120,000 birds on that beach and this was the only
yellow one there.” “They all looked normal except for this one. It
was an incredibly unique experience.” Yves believes the bird is
heuristic, explaining: “Its cells don’t create melanin anymore so
its black feathers become this yellow and creamy colour.” He added:
“We all went crazy when we realised.” “We were so lucky the bird
landed right where we were. Our view wasn’t blocked by a sea of
massive animals. Normally it’s almost impossible to move on this
beach because of them all.”
Source: Metro News (U.K.) 19th February, 2021
Library and Reading Affairs e-Newsletter Vol. 4 P.10
News Sharing
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Library and Reading Affairs e-Newsletter Vol. 4 P.11
Teacher’s Book Review
Book Reports
9B 11 Fung See Tsai
Have you ever wondered about our existence, the existence of
reality, and the existence of everything? If you do, don’t worry,
you’re not the only one! These questions were all asked by
philosophers, like Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Descartes, etc. I
never really had an interest in “weird” questions like these, until
my dad introduced me to the book Sophie’s World.
Sophie’s World is… actually it’s rather difficult to categorize it
under a certain genre. The storyline itself is fictional but the
information stated in the book is all non-fictional facts. The book
is written by Jostein Gaarder, a real-life philosopher who decided
to write this book to simplify and introduce philosophy to the
world.
The story started with Sophie Amundsen, a normal schoolgirl with a
normal life. She never expected anything special to happen to her.
That was until a mysterious person sent her a letter. It started
with a single question “Who are you?”. To us, we’d just say our
name. Yet, to Sophie, it was enough to let her doubt her existence.
The questions slowly grew more difficult, like “Where did the world
come from?” and eventually letters with philosophical answers came
to her mailbox. The mysterious person eventually volunteered to be
her philosophy teacher. He asked Sophie questions before he
introduced a philosophical theory and answered them with great
clarity. This mysterious philosopher opened her eyes to the world
like no one ever before.
ISBN: 9780374530716
Book Reports
Sounds boring, right? I agree. That was my first thought when my
dad introduced it. However, as you read on, you’ll realize the
mysterious philosophy teacher doesn’t only open up Sophie’s eyes,
it also opens the readers’ -- our -- eyes. The more I read the
book, the more convinced I was that the author was the philosopher,
and I was Sophie, his student. It made me acknowledge how little we
really know about the world. The more I thought of how little I
knew, the more curious I was to find out more. It also showed what
a difficult path it is to study philosophy. Whenever Sophie
discussed philosophical questions with her mother, her mother never
understood her. Her mother would think that she was going through
puberty, or even got worried she was sick. Yet, she was determined
to learn more about philosophy, and so am I, as I continue to
struggle understanding the theories the mysterious teacher
taught.
The book is one of the few ones that brightens your thinking and
lets you rethink everything you’ve ever known. The answers in the
book also let you understand more about the world. It would take a
long time to read the book, as the book requires you to think in
order to understand. However, the book will be worth the time, as
it lets you see the world like you have never before.
Jostein Gaarder, the author of Sophie’s World
The Midnight Library
Book Reports
11C 14 Leung Sin Tung “What would have happened if I had done
things differently?” “I wish I had never done that. Life would have
been so much easier.” “Where would I be now if I had chosen a
different path?” These thoughts linger in our heads time after
time. Regrets — a single word carrying overflowing emotions of
sorrow and agony — are intrinsically a part of our day-to-day lives
as humans. They are unavoidable, yet are what we humans desperately
try to dodge. Ending the day dwelling on regrets and pondering the
things that we could have done otherwise have become a norm. We
fantasize about scenarios in which events play out in the way we
want them to. In The Midnight Library, these thoughts no longer
stay as fantasies. The recent fictional novel written by Matt Haig
dives deep into the realms of life and death, as well as the
countless regrets of the main protagonist, Nora Seed, who is
perhaps a simulacrum of every single one of us.
The novel narrates the story of Nora Seed, a 35-year-old woman,
whose life had been nothing short of heartbreaking: Nora’s dad
passed away when she was as young as 16, her mom passed away three
months before her supposed wedding, Nora backed out from the said
wedding just two days prior, and her tense relationship with her
brother. With the addition of her cat dying from a car crash, and
Nora being terminated from both of her part-time jobs as a music
shop worker and a piano teacher on the same day, Nora had reached
the peak state of helplessness and despair. The devastation
resulted in her attempt to end her life, to put herself out of
misery. She soon awoke in the Midnight Library, with the librarian
whom Nora recognized as her old school librarian, Mrs. Elm. Between
life and death situated the Midnight Library, in which every book
held an opportunity for Nora to try another life she could have
lived, to undo her regrets. With this, Nora tried out almost all
the lives she could possibly imagine: a life in which she did not
call off her wedding, a life where she kept her cat indoors to
avoid the car crash, a life where her dad was still alive… In one
life she was an Olympic champion. In one life she was a
glaciologist. In one life she was in a popular musical band.
However, she shortly realized that her quest to find the “perfect”
life remained as elusive as ever. Her married life was not as merry
as she envisioned, her cat still died due to an illness, the loss
of her mother was unable to be altered, and she was still on
antidepressants despite having a successful career.
The Midnight Library
Book Reports
It is fascinating how, despite the exploration of profound themes
like life and death, plus the constant references to complex
concepts of philosophy and quantum physics, a prominent trait the
book displays is, ironically, its simplicity. There are no plot
twists, no grand writing styles, no usage of highly sophisticated
language, just pure straightforwardness. During a life when Nora
was researching glaciers in the Arctic Circle, she met Hugo who was
also a fellow “slider”— a term they used for people who were
suspended between life and death. They once discussed how human
brains perpetually dumb the world down into an understandable story
that keeps things simple, that everything humans see is a
simplification. For instance, how humans see the world in three
dimensions; how humans look at a tree with interspersed branches
and leaves and call it a “tree”; how humans straighten out curved
streets in their minds, hence why they get lost all the time. These
are all simplifications. Perhaps this is what Haig wanted to
accomplish with The Midnight Library— simplicity. He brilliantly
used a library as a simple representation of the many-worlds
interpretation of quantum physics, a theory which suggests that
there is an infinite number of parallel universes, where every
possible outcome is realized in some universe. An insanely
complicated concept, yet Haig was able to make it comprehensible
for average readers like me. His writing is pared-down and simple,
nothing out of this world, but it is what makes it raw and
authentic.
Though the plotline is more like a straight line than an
anfractuous path, what keeps the story entertaining is the
character development of Nora. At the very beginning, Nora was a
vulnerable woman living a lackluster life full of regrets with no
reason to keep moving on. Through her different “trips” in the
Midnight Library, we get to see a gradual change in her view of
life. Before, all she wanted was to bring her life to a halt; after
a near-death experience of a polar bear attack, she realized that
she actually wanted to live. She realized that there is no way of
living that is immune to sadness. Although Nora woke up from the
Midnight Library to the exact condition she had been in before—
laid off, parentless, and no longer a cat owner, there was a spark
of hope. Although her physical environment did not change at all,
her perspective did, and this is all that matters.
The Midnight Library
Book Reports
I believe everyone reading the book will be able to relate to Nora
to a certain degree, some more than others. Like Nora, there are
times when I wished I had done something different and had hoped
that I had the power to turn back time to undo all my mistakes and
regrets. My book of regrets may be as thick as Nora’s. It is easy
to miss the friends that we did not make and the events we did not
attend and the conversations that we did not take part in. Towards
the end, Nora mentioned that “It is not the lives we regret not
living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It’s the
regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and
other people’s worst enemy.” This struck a chord with me. We often
spend time dwelling on our regrets, entangling ourselves with our
own minds, enabling our self-destruction mode when we could have
used the time to be more productive, to live the future that
contains endless possibilities.
Midnight. 00:00:00. It is the end of a day but also the start of a
new one— a symbol of renewal and hope. The Midnight Library is one
of the few novels that is able to tug at my heartstrings. Simple
yet profound; succinct yet sentimental; direct yet inspirational.
This riveting and thought-provoking tale will be especially
comforting for those who seek solace and reassurance.
ISBN: 9780525559474 Matt Haig, the author of The Midnight
Library
Book Reports
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ISBN: 9789622643734
Book Reports
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Book and
Film Review
(Twitter) ……
I
Book and
Film Review
ISBN: 9789862621905
Library and Reading Affairs e-Newsletter Vol. 4 P.21
Upcoming Event
To tie in with the Hong Kong Flower Show 2021, displays of books
on
flowers and plants, and children’s stories inspired by flowers
and
springtime will be held at Hong Kong Central Library and City
Hall
Public Library from 1st March to 19th April. In addition to
appreciate
the beauty of this year’s theme flower “Rhododendron” at
designated parks across 18 districts, readers can also discover
more
about flowers and plants through reading.
I
Library and Reading Affairs e-Newsletter Vol. 4 P.22
Upcoming Event